“Petro’s worst mistake is that every time the vast majority of Colombians take to the streets to peacefully protest against their government, he belittles them, insults them and, what is worse, challenges them in a dictatorial tone.”
Last Sunday, rivers of people were seen throughout the streets of Colombia asking for respect for the Constitution, the laws, the institutions and the republic. Each individual who left is concerned about a series of President Petro’s policies that represent backwardness, polarization and the precariousness of the quality of life.
Hundreds of thousands of individuals came out spontaneously and voluntarily, they went to the streets and squares without any incentive other than to make their voices heard to tell President Petro: Enough NOW! Colombian society is tired of so much lying discourse, so many utopian promises and disastrous management of the country.
Today the nation is in the hands of criminals while the government continues talking about Uribismo, the paramilitaries, the corrupt and all the past. It has become a government that looks backwards as criminals continue to gain ground in every corner of the country. The increasingly precarious rural area and urban areas are feeling tenacious fear.
But Petro’s worst mistake is that every time the vast majority of Colombians take to the streets to peacefully protest against their government, he belittles them, insults them and, what is worse, challenges them in a dictatorial tone. Instead of listening to the general discomfort, he locks himself in his narcissistic bubble and goes out to blame and disqualify them.
The president makes a gross mistake when he describes protesters against his government as hateful people who “long for open repression, paramilitary massacres and the murders of young people.” What he does is stigmatize the protest and pigeonhole the majority of Colombians as friends of crime. But yes, next point, he says that he respects the right to protest.
Without a doubt, President Gustavo Petro is mentally ill. The power that he sought so much and that he managed to obtain with lies and deception clouded his mind and today, every time he leaves, he comes out to say that he is preparing a coup d’état and that they want to assassinate him. He believes that his political project is the only one that can be applied and that if someone proposes otherwise he is an enemy of the “people” and that he wants to imitate the scenario of September 11, 1973 in Chile.
How different the reality would have been for the country and for Petro himself if he, as president, had listened to the clamor of individuals and made the necessary and pertinent corrections. History judges and judges severely, but with justice. A A moment like now is an opportunity for any president to unite the country around solutions that improve the well-being and quality of life of each citizen.
Petro, on the contrary, with his bellicose and defiant language, what he did was end up dividing the country, provoking collective rage and generating more hatred. He delegitimized more than half of the country that he marched in because he thinks that the only ones who have the right are those who blindly support his policies.
They fill their mouths saying that it is the constituent power that has the last word and when they come out to demonstrate, the president – who is the one who talks so much about the constituent power – treats them as gangsters and defenders of privileges.
The government and, above all, President Petro definitely lost the streets and evidently popular support. The country is tired of this government and what it asks is that it stop its reforms and that, in the rest of the time left in government, it truly takes charge of the security of the nation.
I end this opinion column with a message from the current president that he delivered in 2021, exactly on April 29 of that year (I change some words to adapt it to today’s reality):
“Petro listen. A ruler must always listen and correct if necessary. The greatest violence always comes from a government that becomes indolent and deaf.”
